


find me here amidst the chaos

by WashiEaglewings



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: 1-800-contacts Voice: MY BRAND, F/M, Post-Canon, bonding through scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22839850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WashiEaglewings/pseuds/WashiEaglewings
Summary: The scars on their bodies hold the memories their minds have forgotten. Terra and Aqua go through them, one by one.
Relationships: Aqua/Terra (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 47
Collections: I'm With You - A Terraqua Fanzine





	find me here amidst the chaos

Terra spends most of his nights waiting for Aqua to come to bed.

Sometimes she comes to him after reviewing old lessons in the library, or tinkering with metal and glass on her work bench, or finishing her share of chores ignored for sunlight and living again. Part of it, she’d told him one summer night, is that she still fears falling to darkness and never coming back up again, so she works and studies until exhaustion overcomes the fear.

Tonight, after a hot shower that’s turned his skin red and raw, there’s no golden light slipping through the bottom of the door—he’s used to it greeting him instead of Aqua. His unease only grows as he opens the door to see a lazy circle of stars spinning around the room from the nightlight Ven had found in an old box in the attic. Curled up in the heavy white blankets is Aqua, silent and still. He moves quietly, placing his dirty laundry on top of hers in the basket. It’s only been a few days since Aqua had officially moved into his bedroom, made it _theirs_ , but there are signs of her everywhere: her training clothes piled neatly on top of his desk chair, a project or two on her nightstand, the subtle tang of lavender incense that’s burned itself out. 

Slowly, Terra moves closer and presses his nose into the crook of her neck. brushing back her hair to press his lips softly against the wispy baby curls along her nape. Time has taken the worst of the sickeningly-sweet smell of darkness from her shoulders—she smells like sweat and cocoa powder again. Seven months away from Xehanort, she no longer knits her brow or looks behind her shoulder in her sleep, knowing that the wards surrounding their home will hold firm. If there’s a part of him that’s jealous of that, he keeps it nice and quiet in his chest. He could never guilt her for that hard-won peace.

“You’re warm.”

Terra pulls away. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Wasn’t asleep yet,” Aqua murmurs.

“I’m sorry.”

She reaches behind her, taking his free hand in hers. “You don’t have to stop.”

He pulls her closer in response. “Everything okay?”

She nods. “Just thinking.”

He doesn’t ask _about what_ , though he wants to. Instead he presses a firmer kiss into the back of her neck. She sighs in front of him, shifting his hand so it rests over her beating heart. His hand twitches, a finger brushing against a thin rise along her collarbone, and—

Aqua freezes.

He withdraws his hand immediately.

They’ve only been together a month, if you didn’t count the twelve years they were trapped in the darkness and the seven before spent dancing around each other. (Sometimes he does, on days when he curses himself for being too hesitant, too _proud_ , too wrapped up in the idea of “things in their proper sequence”—the Master was as much a fan of sequence as he was of light and, well, he’d always wanted to follow in Eraqus’s footsteps.) They’re learning how to be a couple, in the midst of remembering how to be _normal humans_ after war. 

Aqua shifts, flipping onto her other side so they stare straight at each other. “I’m sorry,” he starts to say, until she shakes her head.

“It doesn’t hurt. You surprised me again.”

He has to focus to find the scar: a long thin line, long healed. “Where did you…?”

Her brow furrows, eyes still glazed with half-sleep. “You gave me that one. When we were kids,” Aqua whispers, when she sees him freeze, “and we were training. You’d just gotten Earthshaker.”

Terra doesn’t remember this. He doesn’t remember a lot of things, actually, before Xehanort; small memories like those had been one of the first things he’d lost throughout the ages. Aqua’s lost a few herself, but strange ones: she seemed to remember most of their apprentice days in almost perfect clarity, but it had taken her a long time to recall Ven’s favorite food or her mother’s chocolate chip cookie recipe.

One hand is full of blanket, like she’s getting ready to cover herself again. She doesn’t. She tugs it down further, even. Moonlight slips in through the open window, seeping into her pale skin, highlighting the ghostly white lines on her arms. His eyes wander.

“The one on your shoulder,” he says, the one that she’s always careful to cover because it’s still angry and red from the Graveyard—the one that’s peeking out from her sleep cami. “Who…” His mouth goes dry, and it takes him a moment to finish his question. “Did I do that?”

“Xehanort did,” she says immediately, a hard light in her eyes. “Right before you came back to us, it… I got careless.” She shrugs. “Just need a few more sessions with Aerith and it should be fine.”

So much of her is written into her skin. He looks down at his own arms, far less burdened with scars, and sighs. “You shouldn’t have gotten hurt like this.”

She doesn’t respond at first, and his chest tightens with each second of silence. But finally, she pulls the blanket off him and reaches for him. Her fingers ghost along his forearms, down to the drip of his waist. Her touch is near electric, and without an overshirt to mute the feeling of her fingers on his skin there’s nowhere to hide the light shudder.

“How much do you remember?” she asks quietly.

Terra thinks about making a joke, playing it off. He might have, once, when they were kids, before all of _this._ Instead he does the harder thing: he’s honest. “Not much. I’m still… there’s a lot I’m trying to piece back together.” 

There’s still a hard glint in her eyes as she navigates him by touch. She stops along his left hip, where two long marks dig red and ragged into his dark skin.

“This one,” she says, drumming her fingers against bone, “you got showing off for Ven, I think. Bad accident with a training dummy. And this one,” she says, rising up to the crest of his shoulder, “I gave you that one during our Mark of Mastery exam. I messed up my timing with Fira. Still don’t know how you got off with just a little burn.”

“Talent,” he says, and she laughs. “There’s one on the inside of my bicep. Do you remember…?”

She chuckles above him, lingering down his right arm. “ _That_ one you got by almost blowing yourself up with Thundara before you’d mastered Thunder. I got in trouble because I was supposed to be training you, but—”

“I was probably trying to show off,” he chuckles.

“ _Probably_? Ven couldn’t stop teasing us for a week. Then we distracted him with—”

“The fireworks,” he says, the memory unexpectedly flashing back: there’d been a festival in the little village at the base of their mountain, and Terra and Aqua had stuffed Ven with… “Moon cakes, right?”

She smiles. “He ate so much that he fell asleep.”

“We had to carry him back up the mountain.”

“You wouldn’t let me take a turn because—”

“I was trying to be a gentleman.”

She’s delighted, her eyes shining and smile as dazzling as the stars looping over the walls around them. He lifts up from the bed, turning to her. She smiles for a moment, but then her gaze falls to the ugly mass of knotted scar tissue over his heart. 

He follows her gaze down, sighing. “I… think I remember getting this one,” he says, though only ever in flashes: purple skies over Radiant Garden, an ancient Keyblade, a blinding heat, Aqua screaming his name.

She doesn’t answer right away, lifting a shaking hand to trace the edges. “Does it hurt?”

“Only when I stretch too far. It’s an old wound and I think it’s as healed as it’ll get.”

“You should see Aerith, just in case—”

“It’s fine. Just… not a good reminder.”

In the darkness her eyes gleam, the light catching on her trembling chin. “I couldn’t stop him,” she whispers. “I couldn’t save you.”

“You brought me back.”

“But what if… I could’ve—”

“Let me fall. Saved yourself. Saved the worlds.” Terra finds her hand and squeezes tight, like that’s enough to warm her again. “You didn’t. Why?”

She’s leaning forward and he readies himself for her lips on his, but she bends down to kiss the center of that ugly reminder—just a touch, hardly any pressure, but it sends shivers down his spine all the same.

“Because the worlds needed you. And…” She glances back at him. “Because I needed you, too.”

He leans forward, slow enough that she can follow him—move back if she wants, flip to her other side away from him. But she stays there, her free hand holding her upright. The kiss he presses into her mouth is soft, almost searching, almost unfamiliar. He’s happy to roam, to kiss his way down the crook of her neck, before gently brushing his lips against her own angry scar. 

She pauses beneath him and he freezes, waiting. The small hitch of her breath and the soft nod against his cheek encourages him forward. He’s careful, feather-light in his touch, only ever skirting the edges of her mark. Finally he pulls away to bring the blanket back over her shoulder.

“You’re the one the worlds needed,” he says softly. 

“We’re not doing that,” she says firmly. “One-upping each other.”

“Ever?”

“You know what I mean,” she says, biting her lip. He chuckles, brushing a thumb over her cheek. “I’m tired of fighting, Terra. Especially about things that don’t matter, like…”

He waits for her to finish but she doesn’t, instead looking past him to the stars spinning lazily around them. He doesn’t know what to do with this moment, because one wrong word could shatter it. Instead he falls back against the mattress, gently tugging her closer to him.

“Then we don’t fight. Or we fight together, instead of fighting each other.”

She settles around him, his head positioned against her chest. A month should be long enough to get used to this, kissing her and being _with_ her, but his head’s still light and his chest feels full to bursting just from that quick little touch. Her heart thrums underneath his cheek, boundless and wonderfully real.

“I’d like that.” She threads a hand through his hair and wiggles closer against him. “Anything to have you here with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises. An oath he’d carve into his skin if she asked.

She doesn’t, just holds him tight. He waits until her breathing evens out and her fingers stop moving against his scalp to close his eyes, to give in to her around him. The stars wink behind his eyes as he finally falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> cry with me [on Twitter!](http://twitter.com/awakingdormancy)


End file.
